History of Denmark Netball Association
In 1978 Jan Soni (the Policeman‘s wife, now deceased), Gwen Hard, Lynda Halse,
Pam Thornton and Di Murphy decided Denmark needed Netball! The Games
started on the Primary School single netball court but the following year it was
decided to move to the old tennis courts near the river. The group organized a
busy bee to mark out 2 courts. And so began the Denmark Netball Association.
Denmark competed against Albany teams too against the Comets.
The
Association formed clubs. Many of the names of these clubs still exist today. They
were Amazons, Sparx, Bluejays, Tigers and Brigadiers to name a few. In its peak
there have been up to 10 teams competing in the Junior competition. 2014 there
are 11 Senior teams registered to play the season.
Pre this era Denmark did play netball. Pat Bourne was invited to join a team after
her son was born in 1959. Joy Hawes, recently retired teacher from Denmark High
School, remembers it well. Netball has been played here since the 50‘s. There
were 4 teams playing back then at the Primary School court. The teams were
called Rosellas, Tigers, Robins and Shamrocks. There were many articles in the
Bulletin describing the games. As the Senior teams are today, back then teams
were a mixture of young and ”old•. In 1992, the new Denmark Recreation Centre
was opened and it became far more pleasant playing on wooden courts inside, not
bitumen courts outside in the rain. Lynda Halse has been an amazing driving force
in Netball in Denmark continuously from 1978 until her retirement in 2009. She and
both her girls Rhiannon and Rebecca were actively involved until then. Lynda is a
Life Member of DNA and in 2014 she has been made a Patron of the Great
Southern Region.
The Denmark Netball Association is a strong healthy club with a committed group
of volunteers that meet regularly to organize games for up to 120 or more Junior‘s,
ranging from 6 to 18 and 60 Senior‘s players. At our peak we had about 300
members. With help from Rosemary Wolters, the girls have got their umpiring and
coaching qualifications as per the new Australian Standards.
Rosemary and Lynda are two of our Life Members along with April Atkinson,
Wendy Marchant, Viv Waddington, Kaye Kranendoek and Jenny Findlay.
Junior netball has moved from Saturdays to two week day afternoons in the last
couple of years. This has allowed our girls to compete in the Albany Competition
as well. We have several teams playing as the Denmark Magpies over in Albany.
They have been very successful in the Albany Netball Association competition.
Denmark is an active member of the Great Southern Region and has organized
two Carnivals in the last 10 years for the whole region. With 6 teams coming over
from 6 other regional associations, we held a fantastic carnival in 2009. The
McLean oval was marked out with 6 courts and the games were played in the open
air as well inside the Rec Centre. It was a very successful day.
(see photos and articles below)
1991 Netball Grand Final Winners- Sparx
L to R: Lee Pascho, Kay Kranendonk, Donna Dowdell, Darelle May, Bev
McGuinness
Front row: Ellie Tompsett, Helen Samelko, Nadine Wakka, Lorinda
Russell.
Sparx defeated the Country Week team, the only game that they had lost
all year!
Bev McGuinness,